Mustangs & Minivans: Lee Iacocca
After the Fireworks-Required Reading
For most Americans, their understanding of the reason for the American revolution is limited to the “ taxation without representation” issue and events like the “Boston Tea Party.” As your long July 4 weekend winds down, why not take five minutes after the fireworks have fizzled and expand your citizenship IQ regarding what all the fuss was really all about 243 years ago?
Most have never taken the time to actually read their nation’s foundational document start to finish. It’s only 1,320 words in length (about five minutes for most readers ) and offers an enlightening list of the many grievances that drove the Founders to take the existential risk of declaring independence from the greatest power on the planet at that time.
It is also a remarkable example of a team working together to craft something truly new, original and enduring under enormous pressure. As Benjamin Franklin, remarked at the signing regarding the need for unity given the irrevocable choice they had just made, “We must all hang together or most assuredly, we will all hang separately.”
We should never forget what they risked for us: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
I hope you’ll finish your Fourth holiday, and honor our Founders, by getting a little more familiar with that great undertaking they launched that is still unfolding in the best country in the world.
Check it out. You’ll be one of the few who’ve read it.
Dogs, Dog Food and Entrepreneurs
Perhaps the most important question any entrepreneur must answer is the classic query, “Will the dogs eat the dog food?” (aka “product-market fit) It’s not enough to have a great team making a great product if you don’t have a great market that wants it.
Stanford Graduate Business School Professor Bill Barnett’s one page blog post offers some food for thought about that most important question that every startup must get right…. and that every existing business must get, right, again and again. He warns us to take time to separate “the signal” from the noise.
At the end of Professor Barnett’s post is a link to another short article by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen on the primacy of “product market fit.” (Andreessen obviously got it right). Both of these posts should be required reading for everyone on your team.
Mustangs and Minivans:
Lee Iacocca, RIP
If you ask most business people to name icons of the automobile industry, chances are most would only come up with two: Henry Ford , the founder of the automotive industry, and Lee Iacocca, the man that many feel saved it.
Henry Ford died in 1947. Lee Iacocca died at the age of 94 last week. He was the only executive is recent times to have led two major automakers as president of Ford (at age 46) and then CEO of Chrysler. He was a visionary, having created the iconic Ford Mustang and the wildly popular Mini-van at Chrysler; and a supreme salesman, having convinced the Federal government to provide a loan guarantee to Chrysler in in 1980 (the loans were eventually paid in full).
He also appeared in many Chrysler commercials and would issue a challenge at the end that “if you can find a better car, buy it!” His resurrection of Chrysler has been “called one of the greatest turnarounds in business history. “ Iacocca was a powerful, positive force during the tough economies of the 1970 and 1980 and provided badly needed leadership to the companies he ran and to the industry itself. He also provided a message of optimism during the late 1970s and 1980s when many doubted that American manufacturing would ever rise again.
Check out his obituary from the New York Times. A more complete bio can be found here.
Econ Recon;
Longest, Not Strongest: The current economic expansion is, as of July 1, the longest in US History, but according to economist Brian Wesbury, it’s not the best. His most recent blog posting will explain why all expansions are not created equal, even if the current one is the longest expansion on record.
Cycles and Salespeople: It’s usually the C-Level folks in a company who look at the macro economy when planning the future but then fail to make that data actionable for the folks in the field. Connor Lokar of ITR Economics offers three ways for you to share economic data with your sales teams to help them take the right approach in selling, especially if the business cycle is turning down or is about to. Check out his short blog posting Three Ways Economic Data Can Empower Your Sales Team.